1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to a method of providing a hot standby redundancy for a trainline communication network having a primary train bus and a back-up train bus interconnecting a master node and at least one slave node in the network, and in particular to a method and apparatus for monitoring and switching over to a back-up train bus in a redundant trainline monitor system.
2. Description of the Related Art
A train communication system is being developed by the assignee of the present application which, based on the proposed European specification DIN 43322 for "Serial Interfaces to Programmable Electronic Equipment for Rail Vehicles," incorporated herein by reference, enables a master node located typically in a head car of a train to communicate via a serial bus to slave nodes on middle cars of the train and on a tail car of the train. See also, "International Standard-Information processing systems-Data communication-High-level data link control elements of procedures, ISO 4335" Third edition, Global Engineering Documents, Irvine, Calif., 1987, the subject matter of which is also incorporated herein by reference.